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Reporter Is Banished From Twitter After Post on NBC’s Olympics Coverage

By Christine Haughney July 30, 2012 4:57 pmJuly 30, 2012 4:57 pm

It all started with a little unbridled Olympic enthusiasm. Guy Adams, a Los Angeles-based correspondent for the British newspaper The Independent, started posting on Twitter how frustrated he was that NBC was delaying TV coverage of many of the most popular events of the Olympics until prime time.

He wrote, “Am I alone in wondering why NBColympics think its acceptable to pretend this road race is being broadcast live?” He continued with his gripes: “America’s left coast forced to watch Olympic ceremony on SIX HOUR time delay. Disgusting money-grabbing by @NBColympics //t.co/bQxKCCdj”

Then Mr. Adams filed a post to Twitter that was heard throughout social media.

“The man responsible for NBC pretending the Olympics haven’t started yet is Gary Zenkel. Tell him what u think!” He ended his post with the work e-mail address of Mr. Zenkel. Soon he was retweeted and some angry followers added the hashtag #NBCFAIL.

Writing in The Independent, Mr. Adams said he discovered that his account had been suspended “for posting an individual’s private information such as private e-mail address.” But he stressed “I do not wish Mr. Zenkel any harm.”

NBC filed a complaint with Twitter; the two media outlets are collaborating to share the reaction of athletes and the public to the Games.

NBC issued a statement saying: “We filed a complaint with Twitter because a user tweeted the personal information of one of our executives. According to Twitter, this is a violation of their privacy policy. Twitter alone levies discipline.”

Mr. Adams declined to comment for this article. A Twitter spokeswoman said the company does not comment on individual users for privacy reasons.

Out of a sense of social-media solidarity, many on Twitter have been posting Mr. Zenkel’s e-mail address.

In his article, Mr. Adams shared an e-mail he sent to Rachel Bremer, Twitter’s head of European public relations.

“I’m of course happy to abide by Twitter’s rules, now and forever,” it reads. “But I don’t see how I broke them in this case: I didn’t publish a private e-mail address. Just a corporate one, which is widely available to anyone with access to Google, and is identical [in form] to one that all of the tens of thousands of NBC Universal employees share.”

Archie Bland, deputy editor of The Independent, wrote Monday afternoon that under those rules, Justin Bieber should also no longer be allowed on Twitter. Mr. Bieber recently briefly posted the phone number of someone he said had hacked his friend’s account.